Chuck McCullagh's views from Manhattan on magazine and publishing technology.

Monday, January 6, 2014

Gunning for the Truth

We know that large circulation, general-interest
magazines (think Life, Family Circle, TV Guide, Reader’s Digest, etc.) will
continue to go out of business or significantly decline in value while smaller
circulation, special-interest magazines, whether about boats, bikes, or cool
tools, will tend to survive. The reason
for this is that the latter tend to generate proportionately more circulation
revenue than their larger sisters. Their
readers tend to be very loyal. And the
magazines generally enjoy a perfect intersection of editorial and advertising
content. In many special-interest
magazines, editors are critiquing their advertising base and tend to do so
gingerly. Products from advertisers are
frequently reviewed and rarely given a thumbs-down.

As a long-time editor and publisher of
special-interest magazines, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with this. After all, most products coming on the markets
in these sectors have been vetted pretty carefully. Often technical editors are involved in
improving a product in beta before it comes to market. I’ve done this with bikes, running shoes,
fitness gadgets, cross-country skis and sports apparel. When I was involved this way, I always made
sure the readers knew.

Back in the day when I was editor and publisher of
Bicycling Magazine, my naive position was that advertisers should want to be in
the magazine because of our large circulation, editorial authority and reader
engagement. But there were always fires
to put out. I remember the call from the
President of Campagnola in Italy telling me that he was cancelling all their
advertising because I was showing favoritism towards Shimano, the Japanese
maker of bicycle components. I replied
that Shimano was aggressive in product development and bringing new
technologies to market. He replied that
Campagnola had invented the bicycle derailleur, quick release wheel mechanism,
and so on. I traveled to Vicenza, Italy,
to change his mind, but he didn’t budge.
Cycling history hung over the meeting room like a medieval shadow.

I used to do the morning television circuit,
appearing many times on the Today Show, Good Morning America, and whatever the
CBS show was called at the time. After
an appearance on the Today Show where I showed some of the hot new bikes and
equipment, including products from the Trek Bicycle Company in Wisconsin, I
received a call from Richard Schwinn, who was presiding over a failing giant of
a company. He castigated me for
showcasing foreign imports on the morning show and Trek in particular, based
right up the road from Schwinn’s Chicago home.
Schwinn pulled all their advertising. I have studied the sad Schwinn decline and
detected without pleasure a large dose of vanity in that fall.

This kind of push and pull has been going on at
special-interest magazines for years. Not infrequently, the threat of legal
action hangs over the editorial meeting. I recall when Bicycling was doing impact tests
on bicycle helmets with the help of a university, the Bell Helmet company heard
about this and threatened to sue and pull all advertising. Our chief executive stood four-square behind
the editorial decision. That is how it
is supposed to work.

I was deeply disturbed, though hardly surprised,
when I learned that the Guns & Ammo journalist Dick Metcalf had been fired
because he stated in an editorial that “all constitutional rights are
regulated, always have been, and need to be.” This was in October 2013. According to a recent NYT piece, “Banished for
Questioning the Gospel of Guns,” “The backlash was swift, and fierce. Readers
threatened to cancel their subscriptions. Death threats poured in by email. His television program was pulled from the
air.” Two gun manufacturers threatened
to cancel their advertising if Metcalf continued to be employed by InterMedia
Outdoors, the parent company.

The NYT piece was written two months after the fact
but offers a fresh perspective. Even
given the historically “close” relationships between special-interest magazine
editorial departments and their advertisers, the banishment of Mr. Metcalf from
the magazine and the industry for speaking the truth seems extreme. After all, he correctly pointed out that all
constitutional rights are regulated. We
still can’t cry “fire” in a crowded theater, no matter what the arsonists say.

It would be easy to point the finger at a gutless
InterMedia Outdoors, a company I know and have worked with over the years. After all, the editors are giving the readers
precisely what they want. The editors
are giving advertisers precisely what they want. From the outside, it seems like a pretty good
business. There is little or no separation
of church and state and few involved seem to care. Anyway, sponsored content is all the rage
these days, the next money machine. Or perhaps
this is Duck Dynasty all over again.

In psychological terms, when I am seized by a
powerful emotion, I am said to be caught in an autonomous feeling-toned
complex, no less intense than if I was an ancient stammering at the altar of a
nature god. This is my personal
unconscious at work. I exaggerate, of
course, but there is a kind of religious zealotry on the part of gun
absolutists who seem to believe in the gospel of the gun, as if this language
has divine origin and can never be abridged.

As part of an academic project, I have read hundreds
of articles, opinion pieces and blog posts about gun control, all written after
the Sandy Hook murders. On the whole I
found them thorough, thoughtful, and logical, all begging for action. A year later, I have to admit that reasoned
argument will do little to change the discussion of guns in America. The
primary reason for this is that the gun and the idea of the gun are so embedded
in the American psyche and nature; in our history, theology, psychology and
mythology. As psychologist Carl Jung
might say, guns are an inseparable part of our personal and collective
unconscious. These are the areas in
which we have to probe if we want to shed some light on the debate.

I have tried to do this with an epic poem, “The
Archetype of the Gun,” that I hope captures some of this complexity. It’s an easy read, if I say so myself; and
available on Amazon. http://ow.ly/skcqI